Monday, October 5, 2015

IN HONOR OF NORA AUNOR

ON
September 17 Nora Aunor was given the highest honor the Cultural Center of the
Philippines (CCP) could give an artist. Consistency was the rule that the award
enforced. Not one but a long line of excellent body of works is needed for an
artist to be given this recognition. There is no doubt Nora Cabaltera
Villamayor—or simply Nora Aunor to admirers past, present and future—more than
fills up the requisites of the award.

A
few minutes past 3 pm, the rites for the Gawad CCP Para sa Sining had not
started yet. Someone in the back muttered, “Nora is not yet here. She is always
late.” I turned around and briskly informed the elegantly dressed but
ill-informed woman that Nora is not late, that she had been there backstage
accommodating guests who wanted their photos taken with her. The lady quieted
down.

That
would be the spirit of the afternoon. There were a few people who were there
waiting for Nora to fail again. And yet, there were people who were there to
show their gratitude and love to this artist.

A
few minutes after, a voice announced the parade of members of CCP Board of
Trustees and past recipients of Gawad CCP Para sa Sining. They all walked down
the left side of the CCP Main Theater. After them, the present recipients
followed. Loud applause emanated from the theater. They all walked down. When
the name “Nora Aunor” was mentioned, whistle and shouts and applause rose from
the crowd. I shouted “Bravo!” I had a personal stake that afternoon. I was
given the task and the honor to write the short bio of Nora Aunor and the
citation that will be part of the program.

Herein
follows the short life history of Nora Aunor that became part of that ceremony:

“Poverty
and politics are the birthright of Nora Aunor. It does not matter really when
she was born. That she was born very poor matters because, like in the many
narratives of her films, she would rise from that squalor into a status that
symbolizes and, at the same time, subverts social mobility in this nation. This
is where politics enters into Nora Aunor’s birth: the person will form an actor
and an acting style that may not be always explicitly about portrayals of
inequality but subtle and succinct commentary on how power is used and misused
in the societies of this republic.

“In
the summer of 2015 Nora was honored with the honorary Nagueña Award. It is her
fate that Nora Aunor would always stand for something bigger than where she
physically came from, the town of Iriga then.

“Geography
and genius would explain the influence of Nora Aunor on the cinema of the
Philippines. Iriga was a small town when she joined an amateur contest in the
city of Naga. That town is part of Rinconada, a term which means ‘corner’. In
her career as an actor, Nora Aunor would portray characters who were either an
outcast or in the outskirts of social groups. By being born in a town that was
at the periphery of a region that was also not mainstream in the thought of the
dominant culture of this country, she would have in her spirit a
marginalization that is beyond compare.

“Nora
Aunor would sing first and win a national singing competition: the respected
Tawag ng Tanghalan. Gone was the girl who had to stretch out her neck to listen
to the songs played over the radio of a neighbor. Gone was the girl who sang
for food. On that stage, the wisp of a girl sang ‘Moonlight Becomes You,’
defeating singers more educated and with more capital to fund a better dress.
She looked at the sky only she could see with those searing eyes and sang to
the moon and the night and the music.

“Then
there was the film industry beckoning her, a machinery that was built on actors
and actresses that had the Caucasian features, the so-called mestizos and
mestizas whose images resembled Hollywood celebrities. And yet, she would
conquer this terrain and win over to her side a newly formed critics group
called Manunuri ng Pelikulang Pilipino. In 1976 she was the first Gawad Urian
for Best Actress, a star and a thespian vanquishing those who ever doubted her.
The film was Tatlong Taong Walang Diyos, where she played lead but,
thematically, a villain. She was not only an actor in the film; she was also
the producer.

“She
would produce more and act in the films she funded: Bona would join other films
as the best in the world, to cite just one example. She would portray Elsa, a
reluctant faith healer, in Himala, a film that would be declared the best in
Asia by CNN-Asia Pacific Screen Awards in 2008. The performance has been lauded
and written about by film scholars attributing the mystique of her portrayal to
the fact that Nora’s fandom parallels the fanaticism and faith of people.
Iconic is perhaps the most abused term writers can give to a celebrity but in
Himala, Nora as Elsa becomes the icon around which doubt and belief
circumnavigated, in which religion becomes not a refuge but a refutation. One
can safely say that if an actor can give a hundred shades of black and white, a
magnificent canvas of chiaroscuro describes Nora’s Elsa: timid, manipulative,
victim, aggressor, confronting and retreating—in sorrow or in joy, it is an art
to behold and a trial to witness to those who believe that cinema is not merely
images on the flickering silver screen.

“Nora
Aunor would win awards in several continents. The label ‘Superstar’ is never
ridiculous when attached to her name. Lately, she is being called ‘The Grand
Dame of Philippine Movies,’ indicating not her age but her wisdom, not really
her longevity but the amazing perpetuity of the acting acumen that has brought
forth women whose decisions about loyalty and love, self and nationalism have
been questioned. In Nora, these women responded back.

“Formidable
are the characters that Nora has fleshed out through many decades. She slept
with the enemy in Tatlong Taong Walang Diyos and lived in the home of the enemy
she planned to kill in Bakit May Kahapon Pa. She lived in ‘Merika and made us
think of those decisions to stay in a foreign land all for economic survival;
she offered us the terrible options to go to America even if some soldiers of
that land could mistake our brothers for pigs in Minsa’y Isang Gamu-Gamo. She
looked in the eye of the storm in Taklub and only saw our sense of self; and
collected umbilical cords in Thy Womb because she could not produce one
herself. She, in fact, played mothers and lovers whose duplicity enabled us to
not to gaze at morality but at the complexity of humanity.

“She
has won all the acting awards. She has been elevated to many Halls of Fame. The
world has seen her and bestowed accolades on her because Nora Aunor holds the
oar and she freely navigates the sea of humanity, ferrying us from the shores
of ignorance to some afterlife of knowledge through a genius in performance
that could only come from poverty, politics and geography, the schools of
acting that have given Nora Aunor the boon to share with the many who believe
in her.”

Writing
the citation was terribly difficult, as I was asked to compress in mere
paragraphs the decades-long sterling records of Nora Aunor. I must confess that
this citation went through rewrites. Hermie Beltran of the CCP had to push me,
at a certain point, to complete the citation. After several cups of coffee with
Nora Aunor songs playing endlessly, interspersed only with songs by Billie
Holiday, Peggy Lee, Eva Cassidy and Ella Fitzgerald, I completed the citation
on August 22, just a few weeks before the awarding.

Here
is the citation, which was translated also into Filipino:

“Nora
Aunor began her life in the 1960s as a singer singing songs from varied sources
and initiating the resurgence of a different vocal music. She knew how to be
hungry before her golden voice brought her to the attention of the nation.

“Her
journey from a young girl selling water in the train station to someone
providing the wishes and hopes of the nation’s masses is no less than epic.

“Nora
would join TV and cinema and with that entry, she would change our colonial
perspective about physical beauty. She starred in musicals and melodramas that
would serve as escape to many looking to her for inspiration.

“Soon,
she would make films that subverted politics and politicize subversion. In her
many films, she helped us escape from the stereotypical women to flesh out the
possibilities of Filipino womanhood.

“Nora
Aunor would perform theater pieces that would prove the legitimacy of that
genius. In plays and in films, she played characters that were current in the
country’s crisis and concerns: migrant labor, rebels and ambitious lovers.

“Nora’s
acting style would create a massive shift in the performance traditions that
were already entrenched. Nora would change all that, with her portrayal of
characters that were marginalized but—with the strength and conviction of her
skills—became central in the imagination of the nation. If one is to consider
Nora Aunor’s legacy to the nation’s film industry, it is in those expressions
on a magnificent face that can show triumphs and defeats, pains and joys, all
at the same time in silence and subtlety that are as disturbing, as enduring
and as endearing as the struggles of our nation.”

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PROUD TO BE FILIPINO! NORA AUNOR FOR NATIONAL ARTIST!

SUPERSTAR NORA AUNOR

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TRANSLATION

NORA AUNOR IS UP's GAWAD PLARIDEL AWARDEE

This portrait will be displayed at the Gawad Plaridel Gallery at the Lobby of U.P. College of Mass Communication.

KABISERA

"This socio-political drama unfolds as a quietly powerful and gripping story of a tightly-knit family coming to grips with abusive elements of Philippine society, specifically the hooded perpetrators of extra-judicial killings. Taking issue with human rights violations doesn’t only serve the film as fine advocacy for its relevant and timely choice of theme, but also subtly reveals various other concerns imbedded in the thread of conflicts. A sure, steady directorial hand, conscientious script and effective cinematography are matched by the lead actors’ faultless performances. This taut and tragic drama will disturb viewers with its stark chronology of what confronts us daily in an often oppressive urban milieu, with the final imagery delivering a subtle footnote to our awareness of the proper place of vaunted justice in our society."

TATLONG TAONG WALANG DIYOS

The digitally restored and remastered TATLONG TAONG WALANG DIYOS will premiere at Cinema One Originals this November 15 at Trinoma! Stay tuned for announcements on how to get a chance to watch the premiere of this 1976 classic.

HINULID

Synopsis: A woman returns to the village of Kagbunga in the Bikol region carrying the ashes of her only son via the old train that circles her universe like the tandayag, the primordial serpent. In a filial act of mourning, she will reckon and reconcile the thin line that exists between tragedy and transcendence and prove and that even the most broken life can be restored to its moments.

COVER FOR JUNE 2015

Nora Aunor, the first Filipino thespian to grace our cover.

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Brillante Ma. Mendoza’s latest work, “Taklub,” will make its Philippine premiere as the opening movie of the French Film Festival in Manila on June 3. An entry in the Un Certain Regard section of the recent Cannes Film Festival, it won the Ecumenical Jury Prize-Commendation (Special Mention) last Saturday. The acclaimed film, which top-bills Nora Aunor as a survivor of Supertyphoon “Yolanda,” will be shown at Greenbelt 3 in Makati.

CINEMALAYA X BEST ACTRESS

CONGRATULATIONS MS. NORA AUNOR!

IN PHILIPPINE CINEMAS: SEPT. 24

Some memories do come back to haunt you. Mara Fabre (Nora Aunor) is diagnosed with early onset dementia, In the hope of jogging her memory, she is brought by her cousin's family to her hometown in a remote island in Batanes. But instead of just recalling familiar places and faces, she then starts seeing visions no one else sees. It is only her young niece, Rachel (Jasmine Curtis Smith), who begins to wonder if what Mara sees is really just a by-product of her illness or if there really is something haunting her from the past.

FILM IN 2013

ANG KUWENTO NI MABUTI

FILM IN 2012

THY WOMB Fan Page

The year's most prestigious cinematic showcase: the story of the Bajau sea gypsies of Tawi-Tawi. Directed by Brillante Ma. Mendoza. Starring Nora Aunor and Bembol Roco.

THY WOMB BLOGSITE

SELECTED REVIEWS AND ARTICLES ON TE MOST INTERNATIONALLY ACCLAIMED FILIPINO FILM [2012]

THY WOMB: THY FILM

Revealing the rigors of unconditional love, the nature of sacrifice is dramatized through the dilemma of a Bajau midwife as she copes with the irony of her own infertility amid the deprivations of her gypsy community in Tawi-Tawi. A saga of island life stuck between the devil of passion and the deep blue sea of tradition.

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Nora Aunor is a critically acclaimed Filipino Actress, Recording Artist and Film Producer. Aunor has also topbilled several stage plays, television shows and concerts.

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SI NORA AUNOR SA MGA NORANIAN

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HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ATE GUY!!!

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NORANIANA COLLECTION

NORANIANA - n. refers to book and nonbook materials related to Nora Aunor, in whole or in part, produced in or outside the Philippines, by Filipinos or non-Filipinos, in any of the Philippine Languages or in a foreign language

SA PUSO NG HIMALA

HIMALA COFFEE TABLE BOOK. Available Now! Get your copy!

HIMALA [Restored Version]

Now Available! Grab your copy!

HIMALA sa Buhangin

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SUPERSTARSTRUCK

Noranians are people smitten by a talent extraordinaire: Ms. Nora Aunor, a singer with golden voice, world-class film artist, cultural icon, living legend—the ultimate multimedia Superstar of the Philippine entertainment industry. Noranians are SUPERSTARstruck.